4 
WERNERIAV SYSTEM. 1 
% 
quantity, and they are found to rise from the lowest order to ^ni?ed bodies 
hose of animals and vegetables of higher rank and more com- 
dicated structure. The rocks thus marked are generally strati- pioaching to 
l^vcl 
ied, the strata are commonly flat or horizontal, and Werner 
las given to the class in which he has disposed them the name 
if “ Flcetz," from a German word, expressive of these cir- 
cumstances. 
Bituminous substances first make their appearance in this BitHmen first 
“eries of rocks j the small proportion of inflammable matter 
hat occurs in the newer primitive masses being carbon uncom- 
, fined with bitumen. , 
The most important formations of the “ Flcetz” class are, two Flcetz rla'..*, 
, , , r -tamistone, 
of sandstone, two or limestone, the same number of gypsum, ., 
and that assemblage of beds of sandstone, coal, slate-clay, and * ^J.vp''nn, and 
tbr indepc n- 
utber substances on which the ill-chosen name of “ the inde- dent coal for- 
oendeiit* coal formation” has been bestowed ; to w’hich must 
jow' be added, that of the vicinity of Paris, recently described 
with great precision by Cuvier and Brongniartf. 
The greater number of the British coal districts afford ex- 
implesof the “independent coal formation and the agree- tric'.H in van- 
. . I , , . . oils parts of 
ment of their structure with tracts of the same formation m tne globe shew 
various parts of the globe, confirms the fidelity of Werner’s fidclitvof 
Dbservations. The descriptions of the coal districts of Scot- serfations. 
land by Williams, and of South Wales by Martin J neither of 
whom, it is probable, had beard even the name of Werner, , 
accord precisely with what has been observed in Germany and 
France. 
• Eigentliche is the German word whirli seems rather to imply sin- 
gular, particular. Tiie ttnn yro)nr is also given for it by Mr. Jainesoa, 
but he always uses “ indepcndcnl.” 
f The memoir of these writers, in which this conntrj- has been dc- 
Jciihcd, is unquestionably one of the most valuable geological publi- 
cations that has lately appeared, not only as it explains the structure 
of a veiy interesting district, but as illiistratiug tlie important prin- 
ciple that the more accurate distineiions of zoology can be combined 
ii{ geological inquiry, with the characters of rocks and their relations. 
I Pliii. Trans. 1806. 
Th« 
